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Letter from the HFTP Global President: At the End of the Year, We Reflect on the Best of the Year

Members Only: 2018 HFTP Compensation and Benefits Report

By Tanya Venegas, MBA, MHM, CHIA. Results to the biannual survey conducted by Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP). Information includes data on compensation and benefits trends for finance and technology professionals in the club and lodging industries.

IT Spending in the Lodging Industry Three-year Analysis: 2015–2017

By Agnes DeFranco, Ed.D., CHAE; Arlene Ramirez, CHE, CHAE; and Tanya Venegas, MBA, MHM, CHIA. PART II: An analysis of IT spending data in the lodging industry based on reporting in the new USALI Schedule 6 — Information and Telecommunications Systems.

Hotels are doing better than ever. More rooms have been occupied in 2018 at higher rents than ever before."We are at peak performance--and we don't expect that to change much," says Jan Freitag, senior vice president of lodging insights for research firm STR.Hotel owners still worry about the rising costs to operate their businesses, however. Even though the average revenue produced by hotel rooms is likely to keep rising, room rates are not growing as quickly as the cost of operations."The name of the game is cost control," says Freitag.Demand for hotel rooms is still risingHotel rooms are full in cities and towns across the United States. Occupancy rates reached a cyclical high in 2018, according to Robin Trantham, a consultant with research firm CoStar Portfolio Strategy.Over the 12 months that ended in September, occupancy across the U.S. averaged 66.7 percent. "We are selling two out of three rooms all year," says Freitag. "We are at the strongest demand level ever."

A combination of strong demand and measured new supply additions has resulted in very healthy fundamentals for the hotel industry, but experts say 2016 may mark the last year of expansion in this cycle. Occupancy is expected to hit 65.6 percent by December, the highest annual level on record, according to a third quarter report from brokerage firm Marcus & Millichap. The average daily room rate has increased 5.2 percent to $120.99, and revenue per available room, or RevPAR, will reach almost $80 by the end of the year. Peter Nichols, national director in Marcus & Millichap's national hospitality group, says owners and investors are still skittish from the recession and keep an eye out for a downturn event.